SEDUCE ME IN SHADOW

  Caden and Sydney

  Read on for a special sneak preview!

  Doomsday Brethren

  By Shayla Black

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  Seduce Me in Shadow

  Sneak Peek

  Caden

  * * *

  “We have problems.”

  I roll my eyes. If Bram Rion thinks that’s news, his newsflash comes two weeks too late.

  Hovering on the edge of a bottle green armchair, I watch Merlin’s grandson slam the door to his palatial home office, locking the Doomsday Brethren into the edgy silence with him. Each are warriors in their own way, most magical. All have the kind of mettle welcome in the Marine platoon in which I once served.

  Without Bram’s Hollywood smile, magickind’s Brad Pitt looks both agitated and grave. In fact, all the wizards, along with Marrok—the former immortal and King Arthur’s champion—look grim. The tension ratchets up, and my thoughts drift to my absent brother Lucan, another Doomsday Brethren warrior.

  Please God, let his suffering end soon.

  A loud bang upstairs thumps the ceiling and shakes the walls. A woman screams, terror bleeding from the sound. On the upper floor, a door crashes open. The shrieking grows louder, and footsteps pound above me. The woman darts down the stairs, heading for the door.

  Tearing out of the library, I race to the shrieking blonde, ignoring Bram’s shout calling me back, and grab the frantic witch by her shoulders. Though she’s likely over two hundred, she looks deceptively young. Her eyes are wide with fright, as if she’s been playing a game of chicken with a barreling freight train.

  “Wait. Please,” I beg. “My brother⁠—”

  “I can’t.” Her voice quivers. “He’s big and feral and—snarled that I smell of another wizard. He ripped his ch-chains.” Her words break as new tears fall. “He lunged for my throat.”

  I close my eyes and bite back a curse. She’s the fifth energy surrogate Lucan has frightened away in two weeks. Now what?

  At the top of the stairs, Bram’s sister, Sabelle, appears. Her lace shirt and golden hair are askew, but her demeanor is surprisingly calm. “I have Lucan under control. It’s all right. Let her go.”

  I clasped the witch tighter. If I release her, what will become of my brother? “He needs her. Without the energy she generates…”

  I can’t finish that sentence. That thought.

  “He’ll die,” Sabelle finishes grimly. “He misses Anka so deeply that it’s unhinged him mentally. My Aunt Millie says she’s never seen such a severe case of mate mourning.”

  More dreadful news. Where is the freaking light at the end of the tunnel?

  Bram and Sabelle dragged me away from my peaceful life in Dallas two weeks ago; the hell hasn’t let up since. Frustration eats at my gut like acid. I can’t fail Lucan.

  Two decades ago, I was unable to save my younger brother. I’ll be damned if I let my older one die, too.

  “If Lucan isn’t taking the energy to survive from these women, how does he have enough strength to fight them?”

  “Primal rage,” Sabelle supplies. “When the surrogates come, in his mind he’s defending an attack. It’s a delusion, and we can’t explain otherwise to him. All his senses, except smell, have shut down. Since surrogates unwittingly bring the scents of their other clients along, Lucan feels compelled to fight back.”

  “Maybe…it’s time to consider that he wants death,” Bram murmurs behind me.

  I rage at those words. What kind of friend even thinks that? I’ve held the hands of fallen comrades on the battlefield and prayed for their recovery…even as some rattled their last breath.

  “My brother will not die like this! I will find Anka and bring her back.”

  “It may be too late, MacTavish. Let the witch go,” Bram insists.

  “Please,” the scared witch whimpers.

  I want to crush something, punch a wall, lash out at magic, which has again screwed up my life. But the sobbing female in my grasp shrinks back in fear, like I, too, am a monster.

  For the thousandth time since returning to England a fortnight ago, I curse magic. To a human male, the disappearance of a beloved wife might be emotionally devastating. But as a wizard, Lucan’s loss reduced a perfectly sane man to a rabid animal. The person upstairs has little resemblance to the older brother I idolized as a child.

  Though I left my childhood home a dozen years ago and disavowed anything associated with magic, now that tragedy has struck and I might lose my only remaining brother, guilt eats me alive. The thought of never speaking to Lucan again? Unthinkable.

  Somehow, I must restore his mental health. To do that, I’ll need to find Anka and return her to my brother’s arms—quickly. Clearly, the witch I’m detaining can’t help.

  With an angry sigh, I release her. “Go.”

  Immediately, she sprints out and slams the door. The rattling of the frame reverberates in her wake.

  Bram hovers just behind me. “Come back to my office.”

  I whirl on the wizard. “I won’t give up on my brother, damn you!”

  With a curl of Bram’s finger, I’m magically hauled back into the study with the others. I seethe with resentment as he slams the door behind me.

  When I open my mouth to curse the wizard to hell, Bram holds up a hand. “I understand your frustration. But our difficulties aren’t merely about you and your family. These problems affect us all.” He gestures to the other three men in the room. “And the rest of magickind.”

  “Lucan is chained to a bed like a lunatic, Anka is missing, and we haven’t a single clue where she’s gone. We cannot make him whole without her return. Nothing is more important.”

  “I wish that were true. Unfortunately, our other problems are many and grave.”

  Ice Rykard, another of the big warriors, perches in a nearby chair. When anger and annoyance stamp themselves across his square, hollow-cheeked face, sane people usually back away. Right now, I don’t have that luxury.

  “You summoned me here to tell me what I already know, Rion?” Ice snaps as he rises to leave.

  Bram blocks his path. “Something new has arisen. Prudence requires that we attend to it. All of us.”

  The bastard refuses to help my brother, but has the audacity to ask me to pitch in? I’d laugh—if I wasn’t so fucking furious. “I was clear. I only came to find my brother’s missing mate⁠—”

  “Former mate,” Bram corrects. “Their bond is broken.”

  “Involuntarily. I’ve no doubt Lucan still regards Anka as his, and they were in love. Why would she not welcome him back? I’m here to find her so they can bond again, not solve your problems.”

  “Lucan is my best friend, and I want more than anything to make him whole again. But that’s a mission of mercy. These other matters are of life and death.”

  “If you do not help me find Anka, Lucan will die!”

  “If we fail to act on this new issue, thousands, maybe millions, will perish. Including Lucan.”

  Sacrificing one for many. Bram has shoved this “necessity” down my throat before. My patience is wearing thin.

  Exhaling, I rub gritty eyes. Every day, worrying. Every night, agonizing. I often pace half the night, Lucan’s mad countenance swimming in my head. Meanwhile, my brother’s “friends” fret about everyone else.

  “Please.” Simon Northam, aka Duke, drills me with a direct stare. “We need you as much as Lucan. The sooner we tend to these issues, the sooner we can help him.”

  Four pairs of eyes lock on me. Except for Bram, who’s kept a roof over Lucan’s head, I owe these men nothing. Hell, I’ve known them a mere fortnight. I want nothing to do with magickind and its problems. But their stares accuse me of abandoning them…and Lucan’s cause. Guilt twists my gut.

  Blast them! Is asking for a little peace after two tours in war-torn countries and witnessing half my friends dying asking that much? Of the few who survived, two returned home only to commit suicide. Another wound up in prison, unable to transition from shooting terrorists in overseas shit holes to walking his dog in suburbia. The last recently went missing following a training exercise on base.

  As my younger brother’s tragic death nearly two decades ago demonstrated, magic’s body count is even more shocking and heartbreaking.

  I’ve endured enough loss and death. As soon as Lucan recovers, I’m returning to my sedate life as a staff photographer for my local Dallas newspaper. No one dies taking pictures of city council meetings.

  “The Doomsday Brethren mean a great deal to Lucan,” Bram reminds me.

  Manipulative bastard.

  “Besides, you may soon need us. Your magic is coming…”

  I fucking hope not. I’m praying my sleeplessness is merely anxiety and stress, not a harbinger of my coming transition into magic. But I can’t deny the electrical surges and flashes racing through my body lately. The witching hour—or in this case, my thirtieth birthday—is approaching fast. “Not if I can help it.”

  “You can’t.” Bram shrugs. “If you have the magic gene, transition is coming.”

  Marrok, the human warrior-giant who still resembles a medieval knight—from the slash of midnight hair that reaches his shoulders to the broadsword strapped to his hip—frowns. “Does this new problem concern Shock? Have we yet heard from the varlet?”

  The shadiest member of the Doomsday Brethren has been MIA since our battle with the evil wizard Mathias, who seeks to control magickind with the help of his minions, the Anarki. During the skirmish, Shock suddenly appeared to switch loyalties to the dark side. No surprise there, given the man’s sketchy background. Because Shock is both Anka’s previous suitor and cozy with Mathias, Bram hoped he would know Anka’s whereabouts. But I knew asking was a waste of time. Mathias brutalized Anka after abducting her and forcing her to break her bond with my brother. Since then, Shock has done nothing to help my brother’s mate.

  Bram, Ice, and Duke all shake their heads.

  “Nothing? That is vexing,” Marrok snarls. “I fear he has told Mathias much about us.”

  “It’s Mathias’s quiet that disturbs me,” Ice cuts in. “Two weeks of it… Right dodgy. Makes me itch.”

  If I cared about magickind, I would agree. But my only mission is to find and rescue Anka, then return her to my brother in the hopes of restoring Lucan’s sanity.

  “During our last battle, Olivia laid a bolt of power on Mathias that should have flattened the bastard.” Duke, clad head to toe in designer everything, looks perfectly urbane and wealthy. The artful muss of his dark, precision-cut hair shapes his aristocratic features, all the way down to his cleft chin. “It appeared to deplete his magic and should have prevented him from rising again, but…”

  “This is Mathias,” Ice finishes.

  Exactly. If Mathias regains even half his power, the small but determined cabal of warriors Bram has assembled are screwed, and every man in the room knows it. How can the Doomsday Brethren kill a wizard who’s already returned from the dead? He has an army of mindless slaves at his disposal. I can count the fighting members of the Doomsday Brethren on one hand.

  Bram winces. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, our problems are worse than that.”

  Marrok scowls. “Would that we knew from whence Mathias found so many disposable recruits.”

  A vital—if troubling—question, indeed. Mathias somehow strips the souls from human bodies to create his walking dead Anarki, all programmed to help enslave magickind and destroy the Doomsday Brethren. During the last battle, the black-blooded zombies were plentiful—and immune to magic.

  “All true,” Bram concedes. “But I called you here to discuss something even more critical.”

  Ice casts him a cutting glare. “The change in your magical signature since yesterday? You were barmy enough to take a human mate. That’s a problem, indeed.”

  My jaw drops. Bram, one of the most pedigreed wizards alive, Called to a human?

  “Wouldn’t your grandfather be proud?” Ice sneers. “Merlin prized that pure bloodline. Pity.”

  Bram charges Ice. “Shut your bloody mouth, you fu⁠—”

  “Cease!” Marrok shoves Bram back.

  I’m inclined to help. Bram and Ice are always at each other’s throats. If Bram needs loyal wizards in his ranks, why the devil did he persuade Ice to join?

  “Piss off!” Bram growls.

  “We can fight no enemy if we are too busy fighting one another,” Marrok advises.

  “Beating in the tosser’s skull would make me feel better,” Ice snarls.

  “What has you on edge?” Duke asks Bram.

  I’m wondering the same thing. Bram is usually the voice of sanity amidst all this magical chaos. At the moment, he’s crawling out of his skin, one step away from a mental ward.

  “Where is your mate?” Ice adds fuel to the fire. “I’d like to offer her my condolences.”

  “My mate is none of your concern. The Book of Doomsday, however, is.” Bram hesitates, then rubs the back of his neck. “Last night, while I slept, she found it.”

  “Found it? Lying about?” Duke demands.

  “It was hidden. She must have searched for it.”

  What Bram isn’t saying clangs an ominous gong in my gut. Magickind isn’t my issue, but if that book has disappeared…everyone, magical and human, is at risk.

  “She cozied up to you to find the book?” Ice looks ready to laugh. “Brilliant.”

  Bram doesn’t need to answer; the humiliation on his face does it for him.

  “Shut up!” I glare at the stubble-headed wizard, then turn back to Bram. “What happened? Where is the diary?”

  “She took it and disappeared.”

  Bram’s hushed admission explodes through the room.

  “Fuck,” Ice mutters.

  “And you have no idea where it is?” I demand once I pick my jaw off the floor. “Or where she is?”

  “None.”

  Ice shakes his head. “Double fuck.”

  The Doomsday Diary is the ultimate weapon in this magical war. If used properly, it’s rumored to grant any wish, up to and including the world’s end. People have died in Mathias’s quest to obtain it. Lucan’s life hangs in the balance because of it. The Doomsday Brethren formed and began fighting to protect it. If Mathias obtains the book and uses it to bring about doomsday—Well, that is everyone’s problem.

  “I second what Ice said,” I spit.

  “You had no magical protections on the book?” Duke demands.

  “Of course I did, against anyone magical. I never imagined a human would know of the book’s existence, much less that I had it. The only way she could know is if she’s Mathias’s pawn. I worry… What if he has the diary now? What will he do? What will become of her?” Bram paces, raking frantic fingers through his golden hair.

  Marrok plants a big hand on Bram’s shoulder. “Can you not use your bond to find her?”

  “I can’t.” Bram sighs in frustration. “And I don’t understand why. I should be able to… It’s confounding me.”

  “You touched her, aye?” Marrok asks. “Did you not use your powers to read her mind?”

  “Yes…and no. I could read her body with my touch, but not her thoughts. I’ve never encountered such a woman before.”

  Duke curses. “What the devil should we do now?”

  Panic? I keep the thought to myself.

  “Not to add to our problems, but have you seen this?” Duke slides a newspaper across Bram’s desk. The bold black headline screams “Supernatural Forces Battle in South London Tunnel.”

  Bram frowns. “Out Of This Realm is a rag. No one takes that rubbish seriously.”

  Not true. Back home, several of my friends and coworkers are addicted to the paper’s imaginative stories. They’re more creative than the National Enquirer.

  “That may change after this issue’s lead article. The byline belongs to a reporter named Sydney Blair. She’s disturbingly close to the truth. Most news outlets wrote off the battle with Mathias as a foiled terrorist act or a gang initiation gone wrong. Ms. Blair calls it ‘an ongoing clash between powerful factions within magickind.’”

  Bram’s eyes bulge. “How the bloody hell does she know there’s a magickind, much less an ongoing battle? Few in magickind even know of Mathias’s return.”

  Though I walked away from magickind long ago, I’m well aware that its existence must be kept a secret from humans. Witch hunts, trials for heresy, and burnings at the stake aren’t distant memories for people who regularly live to the ripe age of one thousand. The seventeenth century is, relatively speaking, last year. No one is naive enough to think that technology is an insurance policy against genocide. People still kill what they don’t understand.

  “I consulted Peers and People of Magickind. I found no mention of Sydney Blair,” Duke says. “She’s no witch, nor is she mated to a wizard.”